Our Infinite Fates

WHEN THE POLICE LEFT the hospital to search for Arden in earnest, they gave clear instructions to call them if he tried to make contact. I agreed to go down to the station the next morning to have a more formal conversation, and they asked if I would like a police chaperone to stay with me in the meantime. It was for my own protection, with the suspect still at large, but I declined. It would be hard to flee South Wales with a cop at my side.

And running away was hardly the behaviour of an innocent teenage girl.

At around eight in the evening, Dehghani dropped Mum and I back at the farmhouse, which had already been searched for any trace of Arden. My blood fizzed with the acute sensation that he was going to jump out on us at any moment, and I briefly regretted my decision to turn down police protection, but I knew my only shot at survival was to get as far from here as possible before turning eighteen – which was in a little under eleven hours’ time.

I don’t know if I really believed that running away would work. It never had before; the tether had always led Arden to me, somehow. But when the only alternative was to lie in wait for Arden to find me … I had to try. There was nothing left to lose.